


How to Deal

by Spaghettoi



Series: bullshit drabbles with peter parker [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Night Terrors, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, what is proofreading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 19:11:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15031370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghettoi/pseuds/Spaghettoi
Summary: It is 3:48 A.M.Peter can't sleep. Won't let himself sleep.





	How to Deal

**Author's Note:**

> Hey okay so I actually go through shits like this and wrote this as a sort to cope haha,,,,, uh yeah this is ooc come for me idc. Just another example of me self projecting onto my favorite characters. Thanks for reading I guess. Also who is proofreading?? I've never heard of her lmao

It's 3:48 A.M. 

Peter can't sleep. Won't let himself sleep. Whenever he sleeps, they get to him, and he can't let it happen. He's pressed up between the wall and the rail of his bed in a desperate attempt to make himself smaller. Less likely that they'll find him that way, he thinks.

He's always been a nervous kid. Always been afraid of the dark. 

He has lots of good days. More good days than bad days, at the very least. He can't take them for granted, won't let himself accept them whole heartedly, not when he always knows they'll came back. The mass of amazingly good days only make the bad ones that much worse.

The light is off. Mistake number one. The switch is all the way across the room, and as much as he wants to go flip it back on, he can't risk it. It would be too easy for them to reach out and snatch him the second he leaves the mattress. His mind runs through the scenario and he shudders, every outcome ending with him being dragged away into the dark.

It's a stupid fear. It really is. He knows better, knows he should know better, but nothing changes. The pure, unbridled panic that engulfs him in the darkness of his room is mind-numbing and impossible to think clearly through.

He turns his phone on first thing. Mistake number two. The brightness is blinding, and at first he accepts it with open arms; anything that combats the paralyzing darkness was welcome in his mind, until it wasn't. The brightness is too much, too blinding, and suddenly everything outside of his phone is too dark to be natural.

The shadows move in the corners of his eyes, and his eyes can't adjust to the darkness of the room fast enough. In an instant, they're on him, and he's suffocating as they reach for him with disgusting grimy hands or flaws or whatever else.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Mistake number three. His eyes were useless and bleary before, but somehow, not seeing was worse. Now they were really on him, truly, truly there. His brain flashes images of them into the backs of his eyelids and it's all he can do to not open his eyes, because if he does now, then he'll see them for real. He can't risk that. 

He can almost feel the scarred hands gripping at his ankles and shoulders and oh _god _, at his _face _, and he compacts his body even closer together if it was even possible. He can almost see the bright, white eyes peering at his cowering form. He can almost feel the disgustingly warm breath of the beasts against his skin.____

_____ _

He turns the music off. Mistake number four. His thoughts are suffocating, contradicting mantras of _it's not real//it's real_ running circles around his head. His enhanced ears pick up every sound, both inside his room and out. He jumps at every one. Every scratch is the fingernails scraping along his wall. Every creak is his bedframe, groaning against the pressure of a thousand enlongated hands. Every yell was a battle cry.

_____ _

It would be so easy to stand up and run to May. Too easy. He tricks himself that he's created a trap for his mind, and, somehow, his mind takes the bait. He can't get up, they'll get him, and even if he did get to her, there's no way she would want to deal with some teenagers irrational fear of the dark. He was sixteen, for God's sake, he should be past this. He panics when he can't understand why he's not yet.

_____ _

He starts crying, hysterical, bubbling sobs that he can't force down into his chest. Mistake number five. They can hear him now, and the more he thinks about it, the louder and more throat-ripping his cries are. They tear through his vocal cords and he claws uselessly at his chest, desperate for an escape. 

_____ _

Sometimes he wonders if he wants to die. This is definitely one of times where he's certain he does.

_____ _

The images press against his eyes again, and he pries them open, trying to force the thoughts away. Except, now, his eyes can't get wide enough. The shadows continue moving. He follows them with his gaze.

_____ _

_____ _

He is vigilant. They won't get to him.

_____ _

Except that they already have. It takes everything in him to keep from vomiting over the side of his bedframe.

_____ _

His hands shake against his knees and a headache pounds against the inside of his skull, right above his eyelids. He keeps his eyes wide open and stares out the window.

_____ _

He'll be running on no hours of sleep, but the rising of the sun will help ease his anxiety; it always does. Ned will look at him, concerned in that way that always seems to be, and May will look at him, slightly disappointed in how he handles himself and how he's let himself slip, and his teachers will look at him, annoyed as he dozes against the desks. As far as they know, the night terrors ended when he was nine years old. There's no reason for him to tell them now.

_____ _

He deals alone. Mistake number six.

_____ _


End file.
